Navigating one’s way around the vintage Seiko model hierarchy is in one sense straightforward but in another extremely perplexing. Our perspective in this regard has been rooted predominantly in the positioning of the various members of the Seikomatic lines with the path up the greasy pole taking us from the modest but still rather splendid 6206 Weekdaters, through highly jewelled Seikomatic middle management to great pretenders and all the way up to something rather Grand. But that route somehow bypasses a chronological path that begins in 1956 with the Seiko Marvel, the first Seiko watch with a movement designed in house from scratch. The Seiko Marvel sired the Seiko Crown three years later, featuring an up-scaled version of the Marvel movement, and which went on to form the basis of the first Grand Seiko the following year. The Cronos model of 1958 similarly featured a Seiko movement of the same diameter as the Marvel, the 54A, but at only 4mm thick, considerably slimmer. The Cronos went on to give rise to the 44 series King Seiko and Grand Seiko watches of the 1960’s.